The Red God of Justice
by Ether
Summary: An orphan was saved in a fire 10 years ago. What will happen when she meets the person...er...thing who saved her?
1. Default Chapter

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN SILENT HILL. READ OR ELSE I WILL SEND MY PH BUDDIES AFTER YOU!  
  
Nothing but darkness. That's the way she's always had her room, and that's the way she always liked it.  
  
A faded blanket covered a screaming woman as she was wheeled away on a cart. There is nothing but flames.people screaming.dying.  
  
Her mother died in that fire.then her good for nothing father left her for dead here at this god-forsaken orphanage.  
  
Nothing but fog, nothing but pain. She is burned. Her hair is singed and her dress is nothing more than a black rag. "Mommy!" She screams, but nobody hears her. Nobody cares about someone so small. "Daddy!" She yells again, but he doesn't hear her. He's too preoccupied with her mother.her DEAD mother.  
  
All she ever wanted was to be loved...To have someone who cared for her, a big strong man.  
  
She saw him in the flames. A mere shadow, but he was there. He stooped down to pick her up, and she was carried through the flames. The rough material he was wearing rubbed against her arm, and it tickled. She was put down, and when she turned to see him, he was gone. There was one voice that rang through her head.  
  
"Justice has been served."  
  
It had to be that man. She always thought that that man would take her away from this awful place. It had to be him who took her away, no one else, just him. That's why she tried her best to be rejected by every single foster parent she was assigned to. It had to be HIM.  
  
And now she was all alone. Nobody was here, and there was nothing left outside that reminded her that people once lived here. There were just the cars that were still running, and the televisions that were still on. The bathroom sink was still running, and she had turned it off; she was taught never to waste water, or else the nurses hit her as punishment.  
  
There were also the monsters.  
  
She had seen one. It was grotesquely fat, just like her father. It smelled like old hamburgers, just like the receptionist, and it was dressed just like one of the custodians. Its face was nothing more than huge lips of flesh that twitched atop its copper-colored head. She was very lucky to have that knife from the kitchen, for it had saved her life. She had driven it into the heart of the beast, and it had dropped dead. Glistening fat had exploded out of its body and covered her, which was why she had come back to her room.  
  
Wiping the filth off of her body with her towel, she walked over to the closet. She saw herself in the mirror. Her short blonde hair looked like the hair on those women she had seen in some magazine. It had streaks of brown in it, and she calmly observed that with her large, green eyes. There was a name tag on her shirt that stated:  
  
Maria  
  
She liked her name, because it was pretty. Her twin sister, Mary, also seemed to think so. Was Mary still alive? She had to look for her.  
  
But first, she needed new clothes. From her closet she picked out her black Sunday dress with the white, lacy collar. She then put on her favorite knee-high brown boots. If the nurse were here, she wouldn't have liked her clothes choice, but who cared now that everyone was gone?  
  
Maria put the knife in her breast pocket, but then went to her desk. She took out a map of the town, and then her flashlight, which she put in her other pocket. Her motto was: "Always be prepared."  
  
After that, Maria went out of the double doors of the orphanage, and into the fog filled town of Silent Hill. 


	2. Remember Me

The first place Maria decided to look was on the roads. Fog choked everything and she could hardly see. The strange thing was, some of the cars still had their radios on, and even had keys in the ignition. Doors to some of the buildings were still open, creaking back and forth in the wind. But that wasn't all the weirdness that was in store for her.  
  
Maria took a turn and found herself in some sort of park. The sign said Rosewater.she had heard some of the nurses talk about this place. They yammered on and on about how their first kisses were experienced here. It was as though having a boyfriend was the most important thing in the world.  
  
But somehow.this place seemed familiar. Maria had never even been here in her life, and yet somehow felt drawn to this place.  
  
She had completely zoned out and somehow wound up on the observation deck facing the lake. The dark waters were calm and pristine; it felt like they would suck her in if she stared for too long.  
  
"It's so quiet here," She wondered aloud, "just like when we first met. What am I talking about?"  
  
Then she saw it. She was looking at two people right in front of her. They were a man in a green jacket, and a woman who looked like a hooker.  
  
"Mary?"  
  
What was he saying? How could that man know her sister?  
  
"No.you're not."  
  
"Do I look like your girlfriend?"  
  
"No.my late wife."  
  
Maria couldn't see who the woman was. Both of their faces were blurry.indistinct. It was like looking at a face through film in a video camera that kept moving around.  
  
"I can't believe it. You could be her twin. Your face, your voice. Just your hair and your clothes are different."  
  
"My name.is Maria."  
  
Maria? That was HER name! That.that FLOOZY couldn't have her name!  
  
"I don't look like a, uh, ghost. Do I?"  
The hooker-lady approached the man in the jacket and put his hand on her somewhat exposed shoulder.  
  
"See? Feel how warm I am?"  
  
Now why would any woman do that after just meeting a man? This.Maria.probably was a seductress of some sort.  
  
"You're really not Mary?"  
  
Maria at least knew something about the man now; he was completely dense.  
  
"Sorry, I was confused."  
  
The man began to back away from the woman like she was trying to take his money, just like in the cop dramas Maria watched.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"I'm looking for Mary. Have you seen her?"  
  
"Didn't you say she died?"  
  
He didn't say that. In fact, he never said anything to the woman. How could she know about his wife?  
  
"Oh yeah.three years ago."  
  
Three years? Somehow that didn't sound right.  
  
"But I got a letter from her. She said she was waiting in our 'Special Place.'"  
  
"And that's here? Anyways, I haven't seen her. Is this your only 'Special Place?'"  
  
"Well, there's the hotel, too, I guess."  
  
The hotel.  
  
"The one on the lake. I wonder if it's still there?"  
  
"The Lakeview Hotel? Yeah, it's still there."  
  
Lakeview Hotel.that sounded familiar, too.  
  
"So, the hotel was your 'Special Place', huh? I'll bet it was."  
  
Maria couldn't help but laugh at the woman's witty observation. The man and woman didn't seem to hear her for some reason, but she didn't care.  
  
"Don't get so mad. I was just joking. Anyways, it's not that way. It's this way."  
  
The man began to walk towards Maria. He didn't seem to notice her for some reason. In fact, he walked right through her. She heard something when he did.  
  
James Sunderland.  
  
James? James.  
  
The two people continued to talk, but then they gradually faded away into the mist, leaving Maria all alone. She was thinking about where she had heard that name before so hard that she didn't even noticed that something had pushed her into the water until it was too late.  
  
Maria never did learn how to swim that well, and while she was flailing in the foul-tasting water, she saw a shadow move away from the walkway. It looked like a woman. She had no time to see, because she ran out of energy and her head disappeared beneath the murky water.  
  
Someone pulled her out of the water. She was being carried.just like the way He did it. There was the soft clinking of chains and heavy boots while Maria's savior carried her off into the building known as the Historical Society.  
  
He was alone, always alone. Carrying out his missions for the purity of this sacred land. No one had come since the girl wearing the white shirt, but she was of no importance. The Yellow One had handled her journey. The last one he had seen was the man.James.  
  
The memory of his face as his other two selves committed suicide burned in his mind. "Now it is time to end this," he had said. He was the only man the executioner had never managed to kill. He was so intensely persistent.even if the ending for him was not a good one he would press on. James was that desperate to see his beloved Mary again.  
  
But he never realized that Mary was dead, and he was only talking to someone else.  
  
But then he saw her.  
  
He had felt sympathy for her in the flames, the crying child that no one cared about, not even her own father whom he was sent to kill for his unjust acts. He never meant to burn down the building, merely to burn the bed that the man and his wife slept in. He had seen her while he crept through the halls, sleeping so very peacefully. She was beautiful, much like the facsimile of James's wife. He would have loved so to have stroked her golden hair, but of course he had to do justice on the man and woman.  
  
And now here she was, lying on his bed just like the angel she was before. She was so innocent, so sweet. A young woman like her did not deserve to drown in a lake, so he had saved her. He had nothing to offer her, just a metal slate to lay her down on, and the offering of his protection. He would perhaps even share the day's kill with her when she woke up.  
  
The first thing Maria realized was that her back hurt, and that she was lying on something cold and hard. She hated hard beds, but it was better than sleeping in the corn sack back at the orphanage. There were muffled sounds in the air as well. She couldn't hear what they were exactly, but to her it sounded like flesh being torn apart. She sat up and opened her eyes, and then screamed.  
  
There was.SOMETHING in front of her. It was eating something that looked like a mental hospital patient, but wasn't. It was halfway through shoving one of the thing's legs up the bottom of its helmet when she caught its attention.  
  
She didn't know how long they looked at each other, but it felt like forever. The triangle-head put down the other monster and walked over to her.  
  
'This is the end! I'm going to die!' Maria thought.  
  
The child made an odd sound, somewhat like the scraping of metal. She just stared at him in silence after that. He tore off some of his quarry's flesh and offered it to her, but she just stared at it. Was he doing something wrong? She made some other noises that he did not understand. The other humans that came here made the same noises, which he did not understand. He probably could not hear what she said because he was not supposed to kill her.  
  
She pushed away his offering and said something else. She did not want to eat now, for apparently she already had something.  
  
It just stared at her for a moment. She didn't know what to say to it. Maria knew it probably was a he from the shape of his body. She also knew it probably had no idea what she was saying, for when she had told it she didn't eat monsters it had just let out some kind of a baffled groan.  
  
She looked around the room for a moment. It was small, and there was no light except for a faint red glow that seemed to come from everywhere. A large fan whirred on the ceiling, and there was nothing else of interest except for the cages with things inside hanging from the walls.  
  
It didn't take long for Maria to realize those 'things' were people who were long dead. She felt the bile rise in her throat, and tried to force it back down, but to no avail. She vomited all over the thing in front of her.  
  
She spewed acid, much like his prey. Perhaps she wasn't human after all. He was so confused, for there was much he did not know about human beings. The Master had said that humans were vile creatures who raped the land and took all that was valuable for themselves, but this thing wasn't vile. She did not take anything so far, and she did not even dress like any human he had ever seen. All of this thought gave him a headache, and he groaned.  
  
He was making funny noises, not a good sign. She must have offended him somehow. She had to get out of here.  
  
Maria rose, and he stood up about three heads higher than her. That also wasn't good.  
  
She moved to the left, he moved to the left. She moved to the right, he moved in the same direction just as fast. It was no use trying to get past him, so she sat back down, which he also did.  
  
"What the hell is going on here?"  
  
No reply. He obviously couldn't understand what she was saying, and yet here she was talking to him. He didn't seem mad at her, just confused. An idea then came to her head.  
  
She pointed to herself and said, "Maria." It was stupid, but if it worked she knew she could at least teach him a few words. Then maybe she could get some answers out of him.  
  
There was no sound except the whirring of the fan, which was getting annoying to hear. The pyramid-thing made no sign of comprehension, and she knew it was stupid for her to try teaching it something. She flopped back down on the steel and hit her head.  
  
"OW!"  
  
Something happened then. There was a faint rustling sound, and then like some sort of miracle:  
  
"M.ma."  
  
It was faint and garbled, but it was there. He was speaking.or trying to make some sort of pathetic attempt to speak. She just stared at him in shocked silence.  
  
"Ma.ri.a."  
  
"You can talk!"  
  
"Maria."  
  
The hollow, metallic voice sounded like a choir of heavenly voices. Maria could use him to help her find Mary, and then she could get the hell out of here.  
  
"Maria."  
  
But the voice would not sound like a heavenly chorus for long, for he would be keeping her up by saying it all night. 


	3. Meetings

It had been about an hour since Maria had gone back outside, or at least that was what it felt like. She was finally rid of her inhuman savior and had resumed her search for Mary, if she were still alive, that is.  
  
"No, I can't think like that. Wait, I'm talking to myself again. Am I going crazy?"  
  
According to the map, she was back at Rosewater. Who knows, Mary could have wandered here by herself.  
  
"I hope she's okay.she's always so afraid of everything."  
  
Maria also wanted to know who exactly pushed her into the lake. A nice long talk would probably set whoever she was straight.  
  
"Ah.excuse me, little girl?"  
  
She whipped around to see an actual person talking to her.  
  
"Who the hell are you?"  
  
"Don't talk to me like that! I just wanted to ask you a question!"  
  
He was a young man in khaki pants and a light blue shirt. His curly black hair went down to his neck, and he had the slightest sign of facial hair on his chin and below his nose. His eyes were a soft hazel, and they seemed to glimmer with never ending patience.  
  
"I'm looking for my grandpa. We came to this town for a vacation, and he has this annoying habit of getting lost. I can't find my Mom, either. Have you seen either of them?"  
  
"No. You're the only human I've seen."  
  
"What do you mean by 'human?' It's not like there's monsters here or something, right?"  
  
"There are. I've seen them."  
  
He laughed to himself. It was a sweet sound, like syrup going over a rock, or a bubbling brook.  
  
"My name is Richard. Richard Sunderland."  
  
She sighed.  
  
".Maria."  
  
"Maria? That's a pretty name. It's Spanish for 'Mary,' isn't it?"  
  
Mary? Could this man have seen her?  
  
"I'm looking for someone, too. Her name is Mary, and she's my twin sister."  
  
Maria took out her locket. Mary had a locket just like this one, and the two always carried a picture of each other in them so they would never feel apart. It sounded stupid, but it was Mary's idea. It was a present for their 14th birthday.a year ago.  
  
"No, I haven't seen her."  
  
A sharp pang of disappointment washed over her. Could Mary be dead after all? Was she hurt? The image of one of those monsters dragging her off into a closet filled her mind. She tried to get rid of it; she couldn't let this stranger feel her pain.  
  
"I'll help you look for her, if you want. We're both missing somebody important, so I figure if we stick together we might find them quicker."  
  
"Sure, just don't slow me down."  
  
Richard laughed again.  
  
"I won't, don't worry. I never like being a burden to other people."  
  
She couldn't help but smile. Maybe this Richard guy wasn't so dumb after all.  
  
"Richard? Dad? Where are you?"  
  
She couldn't believe this. Those two chose that time to just ditch her at that moment, leaving her alone in this creepy, foggy town.  
  
"Dad?"  
  
She had been here before, unafraid and unhurt, but that was a long time ago. Thirty years to be exact.  
  
And she, Laura Sunderland, could not believe she was afraid of a little fog.  
  
"Is anybody here?"  
  
Nobody answered.  
  
An exasperated sigh filled the space by Neely's Bar. Those two were always getting themselves lost. Even if she could chain herself to them they would still probably leave her behind.  
  
And of course, Dad's stories made her even more afraid.  
  
His stories of monsters and things with pyramid heads, and that demon- lady Maria, they all made her afraid. But of course, he had always seemed a little crazy. Perhaps that was where her son got his reckless sense of adventure.  
  
Laura remembered the time when Richard had gone into that abandoned building and came out without a scratch. It was she who had broken her leg trying to get him out. He was always getting himself into trouble.  
  
But, she reminded herself, he at least wasn't like that no-good lout of a father he had, who had ran out on them both when they needed him most for some other woman. He had left her homeless, so she had no choice but to seek shelter at her father's house. She was pregnant with Richard then, and she could remember the look of joy on his face when he was born. He had said that he never thought he would have grandchildren, especially after his wife died.  
  
She could remember Mary so well. She was like a friend and a mother to her. And as soon as she and James left, he had adopted her as his daughter, and she had accepted him as a father. She had thought of him as nothing more than a fart-face back then, but he grew on her like a mutant fungus.  
  
She heard footsteps coming down the street. They sounded like the heavy clunking of boots, and she could barely make out a shadow coming towards her.  
  
It fit the description of the Pyramid-thing from Dad's stories perfectly.  
  
She couldn't help but shake. If the monsters really did exist, then she and Richard were in danger. Her son needed her help.  
  
"Maria?"  
  
Dad had said the thing didn't talk. There was no way that a monster could say something.  
  
"No. You are not Maria."  
  
He looked like the picture of the executioner from the brochure about the town, the ones who had killed the prisoners at the Toluca Prison. Perhaps he had worked at the Historical Society?  
  
"Thank God! I thought I was alone here. And Halloween came a little early here, didn't it?"  
  
He tilted his head, perhaps out of confusion. Laura couldn't tell because that huge helmet covered his entire face.  
  
"Maria never said anything about that."  
  
"Who's Maria?"  
  
"Nobody you should concern yourself with. She is just a child."  
  
A child was alone here?  
  
"I am looking for her, she could be hurt."  
  
"I'm looking for my son Richard. He isn't exactly a child, but I can't help but feel worried about him. I'm also looking for my Dad."  
  
She could understand him; therefore she must be here to be judged. 


End file.
